


fortune

by youcouldmakealife



Series: always in tandem [52]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 14:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19007470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: Georgie doesn’t know if it’s something to do with Melissa, or just a coincidence, but after their first date, his play catches fire.





	fortune

Georgie doesn’t know if it’s something to do with Melissa, or just a coincidence, but after their first date, his play catches fire. Between date one and two he gets five goals in three games, goes +7, and sits only behind Devon, riding a fucking ridiculous .989 save percentage, in the NHL Players of the Week. He doesn’t slip much between dates two and three either, and carries on well even though he doesn’t get to see her for a bit, between heading to Providence for Christmas, her heading to her parents’ place herself, and being stuck spending New Year’s Eve in Pittsburgh. 

It could be worse, considering that’s an annoying side-effect of getting to play on some outdoor ice for the Winter Classic. He asked her to come, but she’s working, and apparently New Year’s shifts are hectic but lucrative as hell, people trying to start a new year on the right foot by drinking their faces off and tipping better than they might any other night.

In Pittsburgh, Georgie runs into Robbie in the hallway just before midnight. His hair’s messed up, which he never allows — Georgie’s seen guys get elbowed in the throat for fucking with his hair — with the exception of the guy he’s fucking. Ted couldn’t make it, according to a conversation he didn’t mean to overhear between Robbie and Elliott. Ted did make it after all, though, since Georgie’s pretty positive Robbie would bite off the hand of whatever Cap messed his hair up, bite off his own hand before he fucked around on anyone.

Daniel would likely say acknowledging the damage you’ve done is a sign of progress. Mostly it just feels like shit. 

“Ted enjoying Pittsburgh?” Georgie asks before he can help himself. Not progress. Exactly the kind of thing he’s going to go to Daniel with later; the opposite of a kid showing his shitty drawings to his parents, asking for praise. Displaying his mistakes, begging for some panacea that makes him a better person, the kind of person that doesn’t stoop to this just because it still tears him up. He does so well, most of the time, and then Robbie —

Robbie doesn’t do anything, most of the time, not anymore. Maybe that’s why Georgie finds himself doing this sometimes, just — trying to make him _do_ something, look at Georgie, even if it’s with hatred, disgust. Anything but the bland nothing Georgie feels like he is to Robbie now. 

“No one enjoys Pittsburgh,” Robbie says, running a self-conscious hand through his hair as he passes Georgie. It only makes it worse.

Georgie heads back to Quincy’s room, which has most of the guys who didn’t bring wives, kids, Teds, counts down the new year with them and, even knowing it doesn’t mean anything, that January first is just another day, still feels kind of hopeful about it.

Four days later USA Hockey calls him. Georgie wasn’t even invited to the Olympic Camp, so he’s a little surprised to get the call. Or, try: floored. He’d noticed a rash of injuries lately, but he hadn’t put the pieces together, realized how depleted the Team USA talent pool was on left D. Depleted enough to call him, though maybe the tear he’s been on lately has a little to do with it. 

Georgie says yes, of course. Stares at his phone when he hangs up. Stares some more. 

Weirdly, the person he wants to call most right now is Robbie. Maybe not weirdly: Robbie’s the only reason this is happening. Well, Georgie is too, he guesses, but it’s Robbie that elevates his game, Robbie on his right side, steady, responsible, that lets Georgie take the offensive chances he does. Robbie, who he knows without asking, isn’t going to make the roster, because stay at home defensemen are important, but they’re not flashy. The Olympics are all flash.

He calls his mom instead, has to hold the phone away from his ear she screams so loud when he tells her.

They publicly release the roster while they’re in Florida, and Georgie gets so many back slaps his skin is stinging, grins through all of them.

“Olympics, huh?” Robbie says, before optional practice, and Georgie can’t figure out his expression. He’s smiling, and it’s not the one with the sarcastic twist to it, but —

“It’s just because they’re fucked on the left side,” Georgie says. 

“Don’t give me that shit,” Robbie says, scowling now. “I fucking play beside you, I know what you’ve been playing like lately.”

“Because I’m playing with you,” Georgie says. And that’s the worry. He got good again when he was traded to Washington, started to play like he used to in college, for obvious reasons. He was great in high school, obviously he was great in high school, there’s a reason he was the second d-man drafted that year, but it’s like he started to play with Robbie and forgot how to play without him. He’s not sure that isn’t still the case, that he’ll reach South Korea and start playing like he did on the Barons again, get scratched before he plays a single game, or, maybe worse, embarrass himself on the world stage.

Robbie scoffs, but Georgie can see the corner of his mouth tick up. 

“Congrats,” Robbie says. “Seriously.”

“Thanks, Roberto,” Georgie says.

For a second he doesn’t think Robbie’s going to say anything, or maybe he will, but it’ll be cutting. 

“Yeah, whatever, George,” Robbie says.

*

Making the Olympic roster is great fucking news, but it’s also probably not a great thing for a relationship that’s barely — well, Melissa told him not to get ahead of himself from the get-go, so relationship’s not the word he should be using. For dating someone in the early stages, he guesses. ‘I’m off to the Olympics’ is a pretty good excuse, he thinks, as far as those go, but long distance is long distance, no matter the excuse, and he knows it’s hard enough later on. He’s worried it’ll kill things before they really have a chance to start.

Melissa’s working basically every single time Georgie’s free, so she invites him to her bar, makes him a drink that looks terrifyingly pink, then, laughing at his expression, pours him a pint of Guinness while a few people at the bar, the regulars, Georgie assume, look at him with some measure of hostility and curiosity, like they’re scouting out whether he deserves their beloved bartender. He hopes so.

“So I’ve got to go away for a couple weeks?” Georgie says, when there’s a lull and she comes over, taking a sip of the terrifying pink beverage, since he’s not touching it. “Just — letting you know.”

“Another big road trip?” Melissa asks. “I feel like you just got back.”

“South Korea,” Georgie says.

Melissa lowers her drink. “Pyeongchang, South Korea?” she asks.

“Uh,” Georgie says. “Yeah.”

“I seem to recall you saying you were a medium shot player,” Melissa says. “And like, I may not know much about hockey, but the Olympics don’t seem medium shot.”

“There were a lot of injuries lately,” Georgie says.

Melissa looks skeptical, which Georgie guesses is fair. Fucked on the left or not, it’s still a big fucking deal from the outside. From the inside too.

“This is where I should say congratulations, huh?” Melissa says.

“If you want,” Georgie says.

“That’s fucking awesome, Georgie,” she says, then nudges the pink drink his way with a demanding, “Try.”

Georgie takes a reluctant sip, but it’s surprisingly good.

“I do have a job for a reason,” Melissa says, when he says as much.

“It’s the color of Pepto-Bismol,” Georgie counters.

“Trust, Dineen,” Melissa says. “Important foundation in a relationship. I’ll make you something less pink.”

The second drink she makes is considerably less pink, and also good, but he sips it slow, waiting for her shift to end. She makes him another one, one for herself, ankle wrapped around his at one of the high top tables while she sorts her receipts, tips, letting him divide the Interac ones from the American Express after she tests him and he proves he is capable of reading.

“You’d be surprised,” she says.

“My place?” she asks when she’s done, casual, like it’s expected, like it’s ever happened before. “Amie’s closing tonight, so I’m good to go.”

Georgie takes one last sip.

“Yeah,” he says. “Your place sounds good.”

*

Georgie turns another year older, though it’s downright anticlimactic in the run up to Pyeongchang. Quincy buys him a cupcake, and Melissa makes him dinner when he gets home, and it’s nice, but everything in him is buzzing forward, waiting for it to be February.

They shut the NHL down for the length of the Olympics, but they’re still heading out before that happens. The Caps are hit a little harder than most teams — they’ve got five guys going — but Georgie trusts the guys to handle the games they’re missing, and he’s never been happier to miss a vacation than he is right now.

It feels unreal, heading over, and the long flight just underlines that, Georgie surrounded by guys about to represent seven different countries, David and Oleg sleeping a few rows behind him, heads tilted toward one another. Devon, in the row ahead of his, appears to be watching highlight reel goal after highlight reel goal. They’re not on him, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to who’s scoring them, until Georgie realizes, after idly watching him watch for awhile, that they’re all by guys who Canada could be playing, and he’s using the flight that never ends to scout the opposition. Crane always seems to just _know_ shit, so it’s weird to actually see him prepare, though presumably that’s why he’s as good as he is. It’s going to suck, playing him, and Connors has seniority on him, is the presumptive starter, but Georgie has a feeling it’s going to be Crane carrying Team Canada.

“Wish I’d thought of that,” Jordan says through a yawn when Georgie nudges his elbow, points it out. “I forgot to pack a book.”

“Picked up a few at the airport if you want one,” Georgie says. “Just stupid thrillers, but.”

“Book me,” Jordan says, holding his hand out, and they spend a good chunk of the flight reading, though the plot can’t hold Georgie’s attention enough to distract him from the way everything feels tight in him, nerves and anticipation. 

*

They all start off slow, practices, scrimmages, have a breath to prepare, get their bodies adjusted to the time zone, though Georgie’s not sure it’s happening — it still hasn’t by day two at least. His mom sends him a picture of their place, which looks like the American flag exploded in it. It isn’t even like that during the Fourth of July, and she _loves_ the Fourth of July.

 _Help Mom bought me seven Team USA shirts for every day of the week_ , Will texts him. _I don’t know how to tell her she got them all two sizes too big but my shit from your jrs is kid size._

 _Hit up the clothing bins in the garage_ , Georgie texts back, because he’s sure the shit he was wearing for the U18s will fit Will. He meant the shirts, jackets, hats — there was no shortage of stuff provided — but when Will sends back a picture of him wearing an old jersey, the 4 Georgie had worn for the tournament they won Gold and no other time, he really doesn’t mind. A good omen, if he believed in them, though he doesn’t. 

Georgie’s slotted into the seventh D spot when the lines are tentatively sketched, which means he’s going to be riding the bench a lot, missing some games, but he can’t complain: you’re not hearing shit from him, the forwards who’re doing the same, the third goalie, who might play a cannon fodder team, if that, barring injuries, and no one wants any more injuries. It’s a fucking honor either way.

 _Do it for murica._ Robbie sends him the morning of their first game, which is a little surprising, followed by _Can you give Chaps a hug if you see him, p sure he’s freaking out._ , so Georgie guesses that explains it. 

_On it_ , Georgie texts back after a minute, then, _Thanks_.

Robbie sends back three American flags and a medal emoji. 

“Permission to hug David?” Georgie asks Jake when it’s just the two of them after morning practice — well, as close as it can be, it’s a mob scene everywhere — and when Jake squints, “Robbie says he’s freaking out a bit.”

“Go for it,” Jake says. “If he like, lets you within ten feet without bolting because you’re not wearing a maple leaf.”

“Speaking from experience, Lourdey?” Georgie asks.

“We agreed not to talk to each other while we’re here,” Jake says. There’s a sulk in his voice that implies that agreement was less mutual agreement and more David telling Jake and Jake reluctantly saying okay. “I’m pretty sure he’d accuse me of sabotage if I tried to hug him. We’re not even in the same _group_.”

He’s not wrong — when Devon drops by Georgie’s table to say hi over lunch, Georgie sees David looking utterly appalled at them, which doesn’t bode well for getting within ten feet of him without him bolting. 

“Robbie says David’s freaking out,” Georgie says.

“We’re all freaking out,” Devon says, in the most un-freaked out voice ever. “Don’t worry, Bardi put me on hug duty.”

“Cool,” Georgie says, not even sure why that bugs him. Obviously he asked Devon too. Devon makes the most sense, considering he’s actually on David’s roster, and Robbie’s closer to him anyway. And it’s not Robbie talking to someone on Team Canada either, because obviously he was doing that with David, and here Georgie is, doing the exact same thing. Georgie’s not exactly superstitious, and clearly Devon isn’t either, beyond the many, _many_ pregame routines Georgie’s seen him do.

Devon is looking over Georgie’s shoulder, thousand yard gaze, and Georgie thinks for a minute that he’s gone off to some goalie place in his mind, before his mouth kicks up at the corner, and he says, “Duty calls,” before wandering over to a table with some seriously gorgeous girls in Sweden gear. Georgie thinks they might be skiers? They look like the skiing type.

“Damn,” Georgie says, and glances over at David again, whose appalled just went up a whole other notch. He waves, and, after a moment, looking unsure, David waves back, but by the time Georgie goes to say hi, he’s gone.

 _No can do on the David front._ , Georgie texts Robbie. _He’s not letting anyone not Canadian within twenty feet of him._

Robbie doesn’t text back, but Georgie thinks it’s midnight back home, so. Not that Robbie’s ever been early to bed.

 _How’s your shift going?_ Georgie texts Melissa. _Just finished lunch here._

 _timezones are such a mindfuck_ , Melissa texts back. _planning on waking up after 5 hours sleep to watch your game tmrw morning so you better win it_

Georgie grins, then texts, _Will do my best_ , and intends to.


End file.
